Kid Poker Leads After Day 1

Day one of the $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship has come to an end. A total of 152 players took to the felt today generating a prizepool of $1,428,800.

18 of the remaining 111 players will walk away with cash in hand, with first place taking home $378,642 and the gold bracelet.

This event's defending champion, Matt Keikoan, was eliminated late in the day meaning there will be no repeat winner.

Our chip leader coming out of day one is none other than the infamous "Kid Poker," Daniel Negreanu. He finished the day with 118,800 in chips. Having already won two limit hold'em WSOP bracelets, Negreanu is obviously in a great position to go for his third (and his fifth bracelet overall).

After play ended Negreanu said on his Twitter page, "Those that doubt the secret solution will doubt no more. It works. Time to win this." We aren't sure what the secret solution is, but it obviously IS working for Negreanu!

Many well known pros were unable to gain momentum today and were sent to the rail. Those eliminated included Phil Laak, Jeff Lisandro, Phil Hellmuth, Shaun Deeb, Justin Bonomo, Dan Heimiller, Johnny Chan, and Scott Seiver.

On the other end of the spectrum, these players finished the day near the top of the chip counts.
Josh Arieh - 107,000
Shawn Buchanan - 92,000
Maria Ho - 75,700
Barry Greenstein - 74,400

Below is a graph showing the champions of this event from the past five years. Will Negreanu be able to maintain his lead and be the next name on this list?

Former $5,000-$10,000 Limit Hold’em Champions

Year	Event	Entrants	Player	Earnings
2005	Event #28 ($5,000)	269	Dan Schmeich	$404,585
2007	Event #18 ($5,000)	257	Saro Jason Getzoyan	$333,379
2008	Event #30 ($10,000)	218	Rob Hollink	$496,931
2009	Event #33 ($10,000)	185	Greg Mueller	$460,836
2010	Event #29 ($10,000)	171	Matt Keikoan	$425,969